As part of Tokyo’s bid to recast its relations in Asia, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will come on his first visit to India next week to focus on bolstering their security cooperation and advancing free trade area negotiations.
The 62-year-old Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) swept to power in August elections, ending nearly five-decade-old monopoly of power of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), will begin his three-day visit to India Dec 27. Hatoyama will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his senior cabinet ministers to discuss a range of bilateral, regional and global issues, including trade and investment, security cooperation, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change.
The two leaders last met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Thailand in October. Hatoyama will interact with top Indian business leaders in Mumbai and make a bid for scaling up trade and investment between India and the world’s second largest economy that is still battling global recession.
“Hatoyama’s visit is doubly significant as this is the first visit by a non-LDP head of government who has spoken about recasting Japan’s relations with the world,” C. Uday Bhaskar, director, National Maritime Foundation, told IANS. Bhaskar suggests that India should seek closer military ties with Japan, not to contain China, but to benefit from Japanese expertise in high-end defence technologies.
“We should aim for more joint ventures for transfer of strategic technologies. We should do a Maruti (joint India-Japan venture in automobile sector) in the defence sector,” said Bhaskar.